Ib Faurby, Royal Danish Defence College in co-operation with Märta-Lisa Magnusson, University of Southern Denmark
1. The Setting
In November 1991 the Chechen Presi-dent, Dzhokhar Dudayev declared Chechnya to be independent. Russian President Boris Yeltsin reacted by send-ing Interior Ministry troops to Grozny, but the mission failed due to opposition from Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and the Russian Supreme Soviet. One year later, Russian troops deployed to contain the North Ossetian/Ingusjetian conflict moved towards the Chechen border, but stopped when Dudayev mobilised his troops for defence of Chechnya.
Then followed a period of half-hearted Russian economic blockade of Chechnya and a power-struggle in Moscow between
Yeltsin and the Russian Supreme Soviet, which more or less left the Chechens to themselves. However, the Duma elections in December 1993 strengthened the na-tionalists and communists in Russian politics and Yeltsin moved politically in a more nationalistic as well as authoritar-ian direction.
Yeltsin appointed a number of minis-ters and advisers with a hawkish and de-cidedly anti-Chechen attitude to influen-tial positions. At the same time Chechnya became increasingly isolated, and domes-tic Chechen polidomes-tics degenerated into vio-lent confrontations between Dudayev and a number of armed opposition groups.
Furthermore, the international game about how oil from the Azerbaijani fields in the Caspian Sea should be transported
O
to the international market made the Russian government anxious to get full control over the Baku-Novorossysk pipe-line, which runs through Chechnya.
Originally, the Russian leadership thought it could gain control over Chechnya by supporting the pro-Russian opposition to Dudayev with money and weapons, or at least that the opposition with covert Russian support could cre-ate a military stall-mcre-ate, legitimating a Russian peacekeeping intervention like the one in the North Ossetian/Ingusjetian conflict in 1992.2
However, the oppositions attack on Grozny in late November 1994 failed miserably, and it was revealed that Rus-sian soldiers, secretly hired by the secu-rity service, the FSK, had taken part in the attack and some of them been taken prisoners by Dudayev. Russia and the Russian army had been humiliated. In that situation Yeltsin quickly decided to make a full-scale military intervention in Chechnya in order to re-establish con-stitutional order as it was officially said.3
On Sunday December 11, 1994 at 07.00 the Russian forces commenced their at-tack which the secretary of the Russian Security Council, Oleg Lobov, expected to be a small victorious war. It lasted for 21 months and ended in a complete military failure for Russia.
To the extend that there was a plan for the conquering of Chechnya, it had four phases:4
1. Border troops should surround Chechnya while the air force surveyed and controlled the air space over the repub-lic. On the ground three groups of army and Interior Ministry troops should move in from North West, West and East to-wards Grozny and surround the city leav-ing an openleav-ing towards the South through which the Chechen forces can leave the city.
Grozny was not to be stormed. This phase was expected to take three days.
2. Securing of Grozny through occu-pation of presidential palace, other gov-ernment buildings, television and radio stations and other important objects.
This phase was expected to take four days.
3. Clearing the lowlands through
push-ing the Dudayev forces into the south-ern mountains while establishing a pro-Russian government in the liberated
areas. This phase was expected to take be-tween five and ten days.
4. Elimination of pockets of resistance in the southern mountains. It was expected that this phase could be quite long.
The Chechen plan was to avoid set battle with the advancing Russian troops in the open terrain but to slow down their ad-vance through pinpoint and ambush at-tacks in forests and hilly terrain prima-rily against the Russian rear and MVD troops. A first set battle was planned to take place a few kilometres outside Grozny. However, this should not be a drawn-out battle either. The purpose was to delay the Russian advance in order to gain time for preparing the defence of Grozny, where the Chechens planned for the decisive confrontation.5
2. Order of Battle
It is extremely difficult to give a pre-cise account of the forces involved in the
Russian-Chechen war. Not only the sources are problematic and contradic-tory. Most of the Russian units were com-posite units and even so not always fully manned. Terms such as regiment, brigade etc. should not necessarily be understood as full units. Even greater difficulties are connected with getting a reasonable pic-ture of the rather casually organised Chechen units with impressive names.
According to Defence Minister Pavel Grachev the original Russian force con-sisted of 23,800 men approximately 19,000 from the Army and 4,700 from the Ministry of the Interior. The force had 80 battle tanks, 208 APCs and 182 artillery pieces. However, during the fol-lowing weeks reinforcements were brought in from all Russian military dis-tricts until the number reached 58,000 in March 1995.6
Most of the air assets came from the 4th Air Army in the North Caucasian Military Districts but were supplemented with aircrafts from other parts of Russia.
The total number of air- crafts is unknown, but it was very large. The Army Aviation
provided 55 helicopters during the ini-tial phase of the war.7
Although it is difficult to give a pre-cise picture of the Russian order of bat-tle, it is nothing compared to the diffi-culties in describing the Chechen forces.
The sources give all kinds of figures from 1,000 to 45,000 men. One of the reasons is, that there were relatively few organ-ised military units. At the same time a considerable number of Chechen men took up arms when Russian troops moved into their local area, but went back to their daily chores, when the Russians left the area.
Another difficulty is, that besides the organised forces of the Dudayev regime, there were the forces of the non-Russian financed opposition to Dudayev. Almost all of them joined in fighting the Rus-sians as soon as the war began.
Finally there is the uncertainty about the number of non-Chechens from abroad who came and fought on the Chechen side. Several Russian sources have fanci-ful reports about thousands of muhajeddins from Afghanistan and female
snipers in white tights from the Baltic countries. In fact there were relatively few mujaheddins in Chechnya and no west-ern journalist ever saw any of the ama-zons from the Baltic States.
At the time of the invasion the organ-ised Chechen units were probably only the following:8
•
President Dudayevs National Guard consisting of about 120 men.•
Shamil Basayevs so-called Abkhasian Battalion of around 350 men.•
A tank unit (called regiment) with between 12 and 15 working tanks (T-54, T-62)•
An artillery unit of approximately 80 men and 30 light and medium heavy artillery pieces.•
A motorised Commando Battalionof approximately 250 men and lead by Ruslan Galayev.
•
And finally, the Chechen MVD force of maybe 200 men.•
The Chechen air force consisted of about 15 L-29 or L-39 trainers all of which were destroyed on the ground in the first hours of the war.These figures about the Chechen forces are not only uncertain but also highly controversial. Russian sources generally give much higher figures for Chechen tanks, APCs, and - particularly - airplanes.
Thus, for example, the chief of the Rus-sian Airforce, Colonel General Petr Denykin, claimed that his forces had de-stroyed 266 Chechen planes. Although it is true, that the Chechens had more than the approximately 15 trainers mentioned above9, the planes had not been main-tained and the Chechens had only a hand-ful of pilots.
What was important, was the huge amount of light arms and ammunition possessed by the Chechens. A consider-able part of that dated back to the cha-otic withdrawal of the Russian forces from Chechnya in June 1992. Some claim that the Chechens forced the Russians to leave their stocks, others that they were handed over to the Chechens as part of a formal or tacit agreement between Defence Min-ister Pavel Gratyov and President Duda-jev.10
3. The Invasion
The Russian invasion force consisted of three groups. The Northern group advanced from Mozdok, the Western group from Vladikavkas and Beslan through Ingusjetia, and finally, the east-ern group moved in from Dagestan. The troops advanced in columns with the air-borne troops first, then followed the other army units and in the rear the MVD units.
From the air the advancing troops were supported by Mi-24 helicopters and SU-25 close support planes.11
Even before they reached the Chechen border they were met with civilian resist-ance in Ingusjetia and Dagestan which confused and delayed the troops. Once inside Chechnya they met sporadic armed opposition even in the areas north of the Terek River, which traditionally is the most pro-Russian part of Chechnya. Finally bad weather hampered the advance and limited the air support. It was not before the last days of December that the Russian forces reached the outskirts of Grozny.
The air campaign started before the ground invasion on December 11. In the period from November 29 to December 2 Russian planes had attacked the two air-ports in Grozny with the purpose of eliminating all Chechen airplanes. In par-allel with the ground invasion, the air force attacked other Chechen airfields, bridges, and major roads, a tank repair facility and the television tower in Grozny.
Also several towns were attacked in this phase among them Shali and Urus Martan, which incidentally had been political bases of non-Russian financed opposition to President Dudayev.
With no Chechen air force and only limited Chechen air defence, the Russians had from the start of the war total air superiority which was used in an indis-criminate bombing campaign, which par-ticularly in Grozny took a heavy toll among the civilians - including the many Russians - living there.
The military invasion, and the indis-criminate air campaign in particular, quickly changed the nature of the war from the declared disarming of illegal
formations into a total war on the popu-lation of Chechnya. This undoubtedly strengthened the Chechens will to resist and was thus an important factor deter-mining the nature of the war.
4. The New Years Offensive The Chechen forces did not leave Grozny through the opening towards the south as foreseen in the Russian plan. On the contrary, they used the opening for bringing in reinforcements to the city.
On December 26 Yeltsin decided in a meeting of the Russian Security Council that Grozny should be stormed immedi-ately even if the military leaders wanted another two weeks to prepare the attack.
Since the invasion the Russian forces had been reinforced with units from the Len-ingrad, Volga and Ural Military Districts.
The total strength had now reached 38,000 men, 230 battle tanks, 353 APCs and 388 artillery pieces. According to a hastily composed plan the attack should take place along four axis converging on the city centre while two Spetsnaz groups
de-ployed by helicopters should disturb the Chechen rear south of the city.12
The Chechen defence of Grozny was lead by the Chechen Chief of Staff, Aslan Maskhadov, from the basement of the so-called presidential palace. An important role was played by field commander
Shamil Basayev and his Abkhas Battalion.
Other units as well as a large number of smaller groups joined them.
The defence was organised district by district and each district had a number of groups, which operated quite inde-pendently. A typical group could consist of 8 to 10 men armed with one or two anti-tank weapons, a light machine-gun, one or two sniper rifles and the rest of the men equipped with Kalashnikovs.
Some groups, however, were smaller. The Chechens knew the city and were very mobile moving through passages, back alleys and even sewers. They communicated by cellular phones.13
The attack commenced on December 31, but again the Russian plans fell to pieces when confronted with reality. The advancing Russian troops met with
unex-pected opposition. The advancing tanks and APCs were not protected by dis-mounted infantry and thus became easy targets for the Chechens who were able to attack with their anti-tank weapons from prepared positions in the buildings and ruins of the city.
The Chechen leadership decided to let the Russian forces move into the build-up areas of the city and fight them there, where the individual units could be sur-rounded, isolated and were without ef-fective artillery or air support. The iso-lated tanks and APCs would then be at-tacked with anti-tank weapons in quick hit-and-run actions. In several cases the Russian columns were lured into narrow streets where first the front and rear vehi-cles were destroyed and then the rest of the column thus caught in an ambush from which they could not escape.
Of the advancing Russian groups it was only the northern under the leadership of general Lev Rokhlin, which reached the centre a few hundred meters from the presidential palace, where the Chechens had their headquarters. The 131st
Inde-pendent Motorised Infantry Brigade (the Maikop Brigade) took the railway station.
The other groups from east and west reached the centre nearer. In the follow-ing battle around the railway station al-most the whole 131st Brigade was wiped out. It lost 20 of its 26 tanks and 102 of its 120 APCs. Its commander, Colonel Ivan Savin and almost 1000 officers and men died and 74 were taken prisoners. As for the two Spetsnaz groups from south of the city, they surrendered to the Chechens after having tried to survive without food for several days.
The storming of Grozny had utterly failed and the failure forced the Russians to withdraw, re-evaluate their opponent and change operational plans and tactics.
This was one of the most critical phases for the Russian forces during the whole war. The soldiers moral was near to col-lapse and large parts of the officers corps on the verge of disobeying orders.
In the meantime new reinforcements were sent to Chechnya, including marines from the Pacific, the Northern and the
Baltic fleets as well as Spetsnaz and MVD units. The forces were regrouped into storm groups at battalion and lower lev-els and a new offensive commenced on January 3.
Now the battle of Grozny became a systematic offensive similar to the Soviet Armys conquering of cities during the Second World War. The city was taken sector by sector after initial artillery, air bombardment and infantry battles from house to house. The Russian civilians still left in the city again took some of the heaviest casualties. Although President Yeltsin again ordered one of his stops for air bombardments of the city - this time from midnight between January 4 and 5 -the pause lasted only a few days.
The Chechens put up an impressive resistance but were gradually pressed out of the city. In one of the few examples of Russian precision bombing two concrete-piercing bombs hit the presidential pal-ace and destroyed several floors. On the night between January 18 and 19 Maskhadov moved his staff from the
base-ment of the presidential palace to a hos-pital on the south side of the Sunzha River a few kilometres further to south-east. The following day the Russian forces stormed the presidential palace. However, already during the New Years battle President Dudayev had moved his headquarters to Shali, 25 kilometres south of Grozny.
On the day when the Russian forces took the presidential palace, President Yeltsin declared that the military phase of the operations in Chechnya was almost completed and that responsibility for es-tablishing law and order in Chechnya was transferred to the Ministry of Interior.
Deputy Minister of the Interior, Colonel General Anatoly Kulikov, was appointed commander of the combined federal forces in Chechnya.
Three days later the Russian forces managed to close the hole in the south-ern part of central Grozny and thus pre-venting the Chechens from reinforcing the city. The Chechens established a new front along the Sunzha River in the south-eastern part of Grozny and for a while there was again a front in the war.
The Russian forces commenced with heavy air and artillery bombardment of the Chechen positions on the south side of the Sunzha River, which made the Chechens give up this last part of Grozny.
Shamil Basayev withdrew almost all of his men from the city and on March 7 the Russians could finally declare full control over Grozny.14 That, however, proved to be wishful thinking.
The battle of Grozny had been excep-tionally costly, and it was the civilian population, which had taken the major-ity of the casualties. Sergej Kovalev, the Russian Dumas commissioner for human rights and President Yeltsins adviser on human rights, who had been in Grozny during part of the fighting, estimated the number of dead to 27,000.15 At the same time the Federal Migration Service put the number of displaced persons at 268,000. The official Russian figures for soldiers lost in the battle of Grozny was 1,376 killed and 408 missing.16 The actual figure could very well be higher. The Chechen losses are not known.
After the fall of Grozny the war turned to the lowlands and other cities and towns.
That part of the war is outside the topic of this article. However, Russian control of Grozny was far from complete. Vio-lent episodes continued, particularly at night. The pro-Russian governments first under Salambek Khadiyev and later under Doku Zavgayev lived almost un-der siege in Grozny. The Zavgayev gov-ernment had during later Chechen at-tacks - to take refuge at the Russian head-quarters at the Khankala air base, which gave him the nickname: Doku Aeroportovich.17
5. Retaking Grozny
During the early months of 1966 the Russian forces - under the programme called peace and concord - conducted a very violent campaign against Chechen towns and villages trying to shell them into submission and often payments to the local Russian commanders.
Then on March 6 between 1.500 and 2.000 Chechen fighters who had
infil-trated into Grozny, launched an attack.
Some of the fighters just arrived on the morning train from Gudermes dressed up as militiamen. Several members of Zavgayevs militia joined them. The fight-ers gained control over a considerable part of the city some sources say one-third, other three-quarters. That, however, is not important.
The aim was not to conquer and hold the city, but to demonstrate that neither
The aim was not to conquer and hold the city, but to demonstrate that neither